HILLSBOROUGH - All season long the Hillsborough High School softball team has been capable of collectively putting hits together to produce big innings, and that philosophy worked for the Raiders on Friday in the fifth inning against East Brunswick in the NJSIAA Central Group IV finals.

The top-seeded Raiders put up four runs on a walk and four hits in the home fifth to take a three-run lead, highlighted by two-run doubles from Donna Conrad and Cayleen Rizzo.

Hillsborough then held off a fierce rally from the second-seeded Bears in the top of the seventh – with the bases loaded and two outs, with the tying run on second base, Raiders pitcher Katie Gademsky got East Brunswick’s Megan Kelliher looking at a called strike three as the Raiders held on for the 6-4 win and their second consecutive sectional title.

Hillsborough will face Washington Township in the Group IV semifinals on Tuesday at 4 p.m. at New Egypt High School – the Minutemaids bested Hillsborough last year in the same round.

“I’m proud of them, they’ve worked hard and when you come in today you’re sitting there and saying, ‘I don’t want this to end, we’re 24-1 and if we lose it’s gonna feel like it’s a lost season.’ ” Hillsborough coach Cheryl Iaione said. “The goals we wanted to accomplish were county champs, conference champs, and state champs and I’m proud of the group, but we’re not done – we’re going for it all this year, we’re going after it all.”

After East Brunswick (23-4) went ahead 3-2 in the top of the fifth inning as Lauren Assennata drew a five-pitch bases loaded walk with two outs, Hillsborough (25-1) came out swinging in the bottom half of the fifth.

With the top of the order up, Rachel Handel walked to start the inning and Taryn Grober and Jess Santelli followed with singles to load the bases with no outs for dangerous cleanup hitter Alyssa VanDerveer.

Assennata, the Bears junior pitcher, retired VanDerveer on an infield fly to short, but Conrad, who was already 2-for-2 on the day, hit a long line drive double to deep center to score two runs and put the Raiders ahead 4-3.

“Everybody was just looking to have good at-bats today and the whole talk before the game was see a good pitch and drive it,” said Conrad, a senior right fielder who went 3-for-3 with two doubles, three RBI, and two runs.

Two batters later Rizzo (2-for-3) hit a double just over the head of the left fielder, who had taken a few steps in a couple pitches earlier, to bring in another two runs and provide Hillsborough with some extra cushion with a 6-3 lead.

“I felt like we were getting good swings early, we were just getting a little underneath and I thought it would be just a matter of time,” Iaione said. “When you look up and it’s the fifth inning you’re running out of time, so you better get this done quickly and Rachel drew that leadoff walk to get that whole thing going and then the bats behind her were great.”

“When you’re playing a team like Hillsborough, we couldn’t afford to give in, to have a ball drop in that could be caught,” said East Brunswick coach Kevin Brady, referencing Santelli’s single to left to load the bases that fell in with outfield playing deep. “They’re just so strong offensively that I think we paid for not recording an out or two in that fifth inning.”